The Face of The Future*

(August 13, 1943)

In view of the tragic existence of the Jews, where the
life of the individual depends on chance, and the life of the community as
a whole has long been on the brink of cessation, one must, more than ever,
see the situation comprehensively. An individual point of view – everyone
will surely understand that now – is of no significance today. As
individuals, we are all lost. The likelihood of staying alive is minute.
Broken and alone – there is not much we can expect of life. Dying
together with Polish Jewry we must clearly visualize for ourselves the
historic character of this time and tell ourselves with courage that our
death does not spell the end of the world. The record of humanity and of
the Jewish people will continue at its own speed in the future, even after
we are safely under the ground.

The numerical balance-sheet of the Jews will be sad when
peace finally comes to the world after the historical blood-bath. This is
indeed not the first defeat of a defenseless people scattered over the face
of the earth. Slaughter, murders, confiscation of property, and the burning
alive of people – all these have been known to us for generations as the
essential elements of our martyrology. But there has never been such
wholesale extermination. Never did a situation develop like this, where
there is no way out. Never before did great numbers of people armed with
the most modern technology move against the Jews. Of 16 million Jews in the
world, we shall scarcely reach 9 million after the war. And, most important
of all, the Jews of Europe will no longer be there, those who up to now
made up the healthiest part of the nation....

Nobody held out a helping hand to the Jews who were
being destroyed, nobody made any effort to help them to the extent that
they could escape from the danger of extermination. They looked on our
destruction as on the death of maggots, and not as the loss of a nation
with high cultural values. When the question of the Jews came up even the
hatred towards the Germans lessened. There was a solidarity with the enemy
in the joy over the fall of the Jews. Only a few retained any degree of
humanity, and even they did not dare to give this public expression. The
truth of aloneness was again confirmed.

We shall carry the heavy burden of this isolation until
the end of our days, and it points to the fact that the only proper
approach is that of self-liberation: We have nobody on whom to depend
except ourselves. All other political concepts will lead us astray. We have
paid the highest possible price because we were lulled asleep by the
prosperity of Europe, or guided by false hopes of rescue that would come
from outside. We lost our sense of reality and instead of planning our
independence we scattered invaluable forces in alien fields. Who knows what
would have been the future of the Jewish people if there were no Yishuv
(Community) of half a million in Palestine, that built its foundations
before the war broke out and which has now reached a million souls? Only
this nucleus of a Jewish State now offers assurance for the survival of the
people. It makes us believe that an independent Jewish nation will rise
again, a wellspring of profound spiritual values, as always. It is easier
to die, therefore, in the knowledge that a genuine Jewish life still throbs
there, that in that one small corner of the wide world we were not
undesirables, lonely victims. There would be no sense in our death but for
the feeling that, after we have gone, they will be the only ones who will
think about us with genuine emotion.

Therefore, despite certain death, we join them in their
struggle for the future. Every one of our deeds paved the way for freedom,
and furthers the building of an independent homeland. Our revolt is a
protest against the evil that is engulfing the world. To counter the terror
that has crushed our people, we shall stand prepared for the struggle for
justice and freedom that should light up the life of humanity as a whole.
We are willing to die in order that the shame of death in slavery shall not
burden the future of the Jews, and that these Jews shall not have to recall
the Jews of Europe with shame because they allowed themselves to be led
unresisting to slaughter, and they had not the spirit and courage to defend
themselves against destruction. As we had not been allowed to make our
contribution to the creative work of building, we shall at least fulfill
our historic duty here: it is we who must raise up the name of the lost
people, to wipe away the mark of shame of slavery, and to place it among
the ranks of people free in spirit....